Holocaust Survivor Sings National Anthem at a Major League Baseball Game

Well, this is heartwarming. Eighty-nine-year-old Holocaust survivor Hermina Hirsch's dream came true over the weekend when she sang the national anthem at a Major League Baseball game. A fan of the Detroit Tigers for over 60 years, Hirsch checked off one of her major bucket list goals on Saturday as the team faced off against the Tampa Bay Rays.

Hirsch was born in Czechoslovakia in 1927. One of nine siblings, she was separated from most of her family in 1944, her granddaughter Andrea Hirsch told CBS syndicate WWJ-TV. Along with her oldest sister, Hirsch was moved among five different concentration camps, including Auschwitz, before being freed in January 1945. She found her way back to Czechoslovakia—by walking and accepting rides from strangers—and married Bernard Hirsch in 1947 before moving to Detroit in 1953.

An active singer in both her synagogue and her local Jewish community center, Hirsch wanted to showcase her talents—as well as her ardent support for her home team—on a broader level. “At my age, I figure that this would do it,” she told WWJ-TV. “I don’t want to die before I sing at a baseball game.”

In April, she shared her bucket list wish publicly and began a campaign to achieve her goal. She received overwhelming support and the Tigers soon made her dream a reality. But was she nervous about singing in front of thousands of people? Not even slightly. As she told WWJ-TV, “If I lived through the concentration camp, it couldn’t be that bad.”

And meet a girl who refuses to let the threat of violence keep her from finishing school: